Heron:mike_the_engineer: Can't we just cremate him and spread his ashes across a landfill or something?

The proscription against defiling the dead goes back to the earliest days of civilization itself. It predates Judaism by (probably) 5000 years, and Christianity by a cool 10k. The Greeks wrote whole epics and plays about how terrible a thing dishonoring the dead is. Achilles, the hero of the Illiad, dies(to the most pathetic person in that story, Paris, no less) as an inevitable retribution to the dishonor he gave Hector's corpse. The Antigone is a story and later play about how shaming the dead is the biggest blasphemy humans can commit -worse than incest considering that the protagonist is a woman born of it- and how those who do such things not only anger the gods but pollute themselves with an amorality so great that no good deed can wipe it clean.

If you want to defile and shame the dead that's fine, but remember wanting to do so makes you the moral inferior of pretty much every human being who ever lived.

Agreed. The biggest problem is too many hateful nut jobs are being given media attention that those noisy a$$hats are doing anything and everything to get attention including stooping and catering to the lowest common denominators and basest and worst instincts in people.

Westboro Baptist Church should have been ignored years ago, their press releases put in the circular file, Pam Geller stashed into the nuthouse where she desperately belongs and Lafferty, well, just laughed at and backs turned on.

Pocket Ninja:Aarontology: If the media hadn't reported on the exact location, you all would have gone about your lives as if nothing had ever happened.

Well, for a while, they would have. But the moment those Muslims finish transporting the Masjid al-Haram from Mecca to Doswell and declare Virginia the new Holy Land, things will likely get pretty crazy down there. They just have concerns. They're concerned.

Has anyone figured out where Yggdrasil is 'supposed' to be? I'm really tempted to go looking sometime next fall/winter, given that I live in Blacksburg. But "30 Miles south of Blacksburg", and then saying in the foreward he may have falsified locations slightly... would make it tricksy.

A couple or so years back, I watched my idiot home town debate over digging up Muslim graves just because they become frightened that the "towel head" Sunis might rise from the grave and kill them in their sleep... or something. I never really understood what they thought was going to happen. That was for a peaceful community. Rednecks up in arms are frightening in their ignorance.

No, it isn't really. Per capita, Muslims are actually less violent than Christians, and for every Tsarnaev in the US, there's probably 15-20 angry white christian dudes with firearms and higher body counts. You want to see anti-Christian task-forces too?

No. Incorrect. Both demographics in America, Muslim and "right-wing Christian" (as opposed to, you know, Christian), can be analyzed to determine their percentages of violence via terrorist acts. Right-wingers are somewhere in the .00000something range per capita, and Muslims are in the .0000something range per capita. Small enough in both groups that, well, all us sane folk can go enjoy life and produce valuable services and products, and play and sh*t...yaknow? Muslims more violent by a factor of ten, but at levels that are almost statistically insignificant. With 7 billion people on the planet, gonna have some major malfunctions here and there.

You're more likely to get people riled up over the giant 12-year old girl slang at the end than the actual troll.

[images1.wikia.nocookie.net image 350x394]

I guess its more effective than just putting your head in sand. How many have been killed at the hands of neo nazis lately? Now islam?

Hey, Joe... I think last time you were in one of these threads you said that your fear of Muslims came from living in a predominantly Islamic country for some period. I asked you for a little more information, but we never heard back.

Do you think you could explain the context of your experience in more detail?

Albert911emt:I'm embarrassed to be living in the same state as these idiots. Freedumb of religion for our everyone, except people we don't like!!!Christians onlyMy specific brand of ChristianityActually, just my ChurchDirect blood relatives who go to the same church as me and sit in the same rowJust me

Aarontology:Pocket Ninja: Aarontology: Yeah, but it'll be a while before that happens. The Muslim from Tsarnaev hasn't seeped into the groundwater yet and they can't just transport the Masjid al-Haram onto non jihadi consecrated soil. That stuff takes years.

That's true, but I think you're forgetting the very likely possibility that they may start sending Martyr Brigades to Doswell. If enough Muslims blow themselves up within the cemetery and surrounding areas, it won't just be Tsarnaev's Muslim seeping into the groundwater, it'll be all of their Muslims. That would greatly speed up the process, like a sponge absorbing water from multiple sources. I agree with you that transporting the Masjid al-Haram is a monumental undertaking, but I think you're not fully anticipating how quickly they could jihadify the ground itself.

Ye gods, you're right.I forgot about the exponential nature of jihadi seepage. It'll be like attempting to achieve critical mass in nuclear experiment one bit of plutonium at a time, but instead of one massive kaboom it'll be a series of smaller, cafe and possibly where your children are shattering kabooms. As they spread out, more and more of Old Dominion will fall under the New American Caliphate.

I'll bet they'll get to the point where they can claim Monticello as their new Capital.

I'd go with Michie Tavern right down the road. Same old timey historicalness, but they serve a pretty good fried chicken buffet.

While we're at it, I live on a side street off Jefferson Davis Highway. Article 3, section 3, of the US Constitution pretty much defines ol' Jeff as a traitor. So why exactly do I have to drive down a road named for a traitor to my country, and for that matter, go past a little shrine decorated with the flags of the traitors (pointedly excluding the flag of the US)?

Heron:mike_the_engineer: Can't we just cremate him and spread his ashes across a landfill or something?

The proscription against defiling the dead goes back to the earliest days of civilization itself. It predates Judaism by (probably) 5000 years, and Christianity by a cool 10k. The Greeks wrote whole epics and plays about how terrible a thing dishonoring the dead is. Achilles, the hero of the Illiad, dies(to the most pathetic person in that story, Paris, no less) as an inevitable retribution to the dishonor he gave Hector's corpse. The Antigone is a story and later play about how shaming the dead is the biggest blasphemy humans can commit -worse than incest considering that the protagonist is a woman born of it- and how those who do such things not only anger the gods but pollute themselves with an amorality so great that no good deed can wipe it clean.

If you want to defile and shame the dead that's fine, but remember wanting to do so makes you the moral inferior of pretty much every human being who ever lived.

When I die you can defile my body any way you want - fark me in the ass with a broomstick, piss on my face, chop me into little bits and put me on the compost heap. I don't and won't give a shiat. This whole veneration of the dead body thing, viewings, elaborate funerals is just a load of bollocks.

Lafferty predicted the site will become a shrine for Islamic jihadists.

The branch of Islam that jihadis tend to follow is one that destroys shrines. That's one reason why there was consternation about turning Bin Laden into fish food: his grave wouldn't become a shrine for followers because they don't believe in shrines.

Gotta love the t-shirt in the article too: applies to Christian law as well as Sharia, miss...

ukexpat:When I die you can defile my body any way you want - fark me in the ass with a broomstick, piss on my face, chop me into little bits and put me on the compost heap. I don't and won't give a shiat. This whole veneration of the dead body thing, viewings, elaborate funerals is just a load of bollocks.

Same here.And I won't even be judgmental about it and call you morally inferior for doing it. I'll be dead.

ReverendJasen:ukexpat: When I die you can defile my body any way you want - fark me in the ass with a broomstick, piss on my face, chop me into little bits and put me on the compost heap. I don't and won't give a shiat. This whole veneration of the dead body thing, viewings, elaborate funerals is just a load of bollocks.

Same here.And I won't even be judgmental about it and call you morally inferior for doing it. I'll be dead.

Newsflash: funerals are usually done for the living, not for the dead. They're dead - they largely just lay there unmoved.

Some people are weird - they want "closure" for emotional traumas, even if that means speaking to a dead body in a box. Some others want to escort their friend/family to their final resting place as a symbol for the way that friend/family member supported them throughout their lives. Some others find it to be a good time to recount the life of the deceased (which is how I learned that a cousin of mine escaped Nazi Germany and had family in one of the Resistance movements) - either the interesting-but-barely-known or the humorous. Some people want to honor their beloved's religious wishes (HAHAHAHAHA stupid superstitious fools and their skycake lolz), even if they don't share them.

And some others are sticklers for tradition.

// me, I want the crowd to roast me - not in the Monty Python way, in the Friar's Club way

Homer: Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol must be working like a charm.Lisa: That's specious reasoning, Dad.Homer: Thank you, dear.Lisa: By your logic I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away.Homer: Oh, how does it work?Lisa: It doesn't work.Homer: Uh-huh.Lisa: It's just a stupid rock.Homer: Uh-huh.Lisa: But I don't see any tigers around, do you?[Homer thinks of this, then pulls out some money]Homer: Lisa, I want to buy your rock.

Everything. The Simpsons has an answer to it. Even something as stupid and pointless as a Virginia Anti-Sharia Thingie.

According to Jan Michiel Otto, Professor of Law and Governance in Developing Countries at Leiden University: "Anthropological research shows that people in local communities often do not distinguish clearly whether and to what extent their norms and practices are based on local tradition, tribal custom, or religion. Those who adhere to a confrontational view of sharia tend to ascribe many undesirable practices to sharia and religion overlooking custom and culture, even if high-ranking religious authorities have stated the opposite." Otto's analysis appears in a paper commissioned by the Netherland Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In other words, Sharia Law is generally an unfortunate confusion between God's Law and the customary practices and beliefs of ignorant or wilful people in a Muslim society. You know, like putting the Ten Commandments carved in stone on the Court House lawn, or insisting that God hates figs, because you do, and interpreting Scriptures to reflect this view, even in passages which have little or nothing to do with figs.

If Sharia Law came to the USA it would be under either of following conditions: 1) Christian Sharia Law is imposed on the secular Constitution and customs of the United States by religious busy-bodies and fanatics of a Dominionist stamp; or 2) Islam becomes the dominent or near-dominent religion of the United States some how and the Faithful impose Sharia Law from within.

The former happens in Margaret Atwood's dystopian SF novel, The Handmaid's Tale. The latter is unlikely to happen in a month of Blue Moons all occurring on a Sunday.

I worry about the first contingency as I worry about Sinclair Lewis's It Can't Happen Here happening here. It is a remote possibility unless we are all vigilant on the long time scale. But the second threat is so remote that you might as well worry about aliens taking over or a phase shift in the "real" vacuum bringing the Universe to an end.

Fascism is, as Lewis put it, more likely to come wrapped and a flag and carrying a cross than it is in a Burqah, carrying a little green book.

Dr Dreidel:ReverendJasen: ukexpat: When I die you can defile my body any way you want - fark me in the ass with a broomstick, piss on my face, chop me into little bits and put me on the compost heap. I don't and won't give a shiat. This whole veneration of the dead body thing, viewings, elaborate funerals is just a load of bollocks.

Same here.And I won't even be judgmental about it and call you morally inferior for doing it. I'll be dead.

Newsflash: funerals are usually done for the living, not for the dead.

I wasn't paying that much attention, but wasn't there even some issue that even Tamerlan's relatives didn't want to claim the body? In which case, if it is good enough for other deceased people to be cremated and have their ashes scattered, it should be good enough for him. I'm told that it's against his religion, but if he really wanted his religious beliefs respected he should have put a little more effort into earning some respect when he was alive. As it is, he is dead, he wont know. I'm pretty sure he isn't getting 72 virgins, or 72 grapes or whatever it was anyway.

The 'it's a dead body, get over it' applies as much to making a big deal about giving him a religiously appropriate burial. If you cremate him and scatter the ashes it truly will be over, and the bleating would cease.